The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Monday refused to dismiss a lawsuit against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for creating policies that caused American civilians to be tortured by the U.S. military in Iraq.

In a 2 to 1 decision, the court ruled that the lawsuit filed by Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, two American citizens who were allegedly tortured at a U.S. military prison in Iraq in 2006, provided adequate evidence that Rumsfeld was personally responsible for their treatment and that Rumsfeld was not entitled to qualified immunity.

“If the plaintiffs’ allegations are true, two young American civilians were trying to do the right thing by becoming whistleblowers to the U.S. government, but found themselves detained in prison and tortured by their own government, without notice to their families and with no sign of when the harsh physical and psychological abuse would end,” they wrote their decision (PDF).

Calling a GOP victory in the 2012 presidential election antithetical to the party platform, top Republicans revealed a new long-term political strategy Tuesday: reelecting Barack Obama and making his life even more of a living hell than it already is.

"For three years, the Republican Party has coalesced around the single goal of making President Obama’s every waking moment sheer and utter torture," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters. "But we can’t continue to do that if he’s not in office."

"If we are going to make the president a haggard shell of a human being by the time he leaves the White House, we need four more years of never compromising, four more years of miring every piece of legislation in unnecessary procedural muck, four more years of pretending we want to work with the president and then walking away from the table at the last second," McConnell added. "Four more years! Four more years! Obama 2012!"

but just do a quick google for “GOP bullies”. The result will be countless articles stating the obvious: That the GOP and the Tea Party act like classical bullies. Obama is stuck in a typical trap. He believes in compromise, moderation, and negotiating. This is the wrong behaviour when dealing with bullies, because they see this as weakness to provide them even more reason to smack harder.

The USA would need urgently some event which would show the GOP clear without ambiguity: “Stop. Not a step further. You went too far. We will not tolerate this anymore.”

Facing unending rioting that has spread to other cities, London deployed 16,000 police in the largest show of force in the city’s history. British Prime Minister David Cameron cut short a holiday in Italy to return home to deal with the widening crisis. Army units are standing by to help restore order. To date, 563 people have been arrested, and over 100 police officers injured. Collected here are images of the rioting and efforts to clean up the destruction. — Lane Turner (25 photos total)

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Police arrest a man for looting in Clapham Junction in south London on August 8, 2011. (Simon Dawson/AP) #

I wonder how many different pictures exist for this particular situation…

The German Federal Criminal Police (the “Bundeskriminalamt” or BKA for short) recently warned consumers about a new Windows malware strain that waits until the victim logs in to his bank account. The malware then presents the customer with a message stating that a credit has been made to his account by mistake, and that the account has been frozen until the errant payment is transferred back.

When the unwitting user views his account balance, the malware modifies the amounts displayed in his browser; it appears that he has recently received a large transfer into his account. The victim is told to immediately make a transfer to return the funds and unlock his account. The malicious software presents an already filled-in online transfer form — with the account and routing numbers for a bank account the attacker controls.

We’ve got a real problem…this is a mathematical fact. Tens of trillions of dollars are being extracted from the United States of America. Democrats aren’t fixing it, Republicans aren’t stopping it — an entire integrated system, banking, trade and taxation, created by both parties over a period of two decades is at work decimating our entire country right now.

Tens of trillions of dollars? That sounds bad. But if it’s a “mathematical fact” then there must be clear and obvious sources to point to for support of this claim. Let’s see. At a quick glance, it looks like the cumulative trade deficit over the past 30 years is about $9T [1]. Foreign ownership of federal debt is about $4.5T [2]. So far: more than $10T but not really an active gusher of “tens of trillions”.

What other forms are there? Some billions of TARP money went to foreign banks, but did that add up to anything in the big picture? What else? Oil imports? Those are part of the trade deficit. Payment of dividends to foreign shareholders of U.S. corporations? Banks shuffling profits to off-shore subsidiaries? Does that stuff add up?

Anyone got some backing for this “mathematical fact”?

Nice rant, though. I really look forward to Barack “going to raise a billion dollars for my re-election campaign” Obama kicking the money out of politics.